[laughter] he was born in new york city, he was raised in montreal. he went to mcgill and after that was a commonwealth scholar at oxford, then went to the harvard medical school and was a psychiatrist, practiced for three years, was the chief resident at massachusetts general hospital. briefly went to work for president carter, was a speech writer for vice president mondale during his presidential campaign and then where i got to meet him was when he came to "the new republic" in early 1981. and at the time "the new republic," if i may say so, was, it was the golden age. charles was there and mike kingsley and rick hertzberg and what was interesting about it, at least to me, was you had a group of people who had different ideas and frequently fought over them, but it wasn't a monolithment at any -- monolith. at any rate, charles won the national magazine award for commentary in 1984, a very cofted prize for anybody who's a magazine writer x. then in 1985 he went to work for "the washington post" as a columnist. and within two years he had won a pulit